The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, has announced that Professor Claudia Goldin, a renowned labor economist, has been honored with the prestigious 2023 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The esteemed award, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, marks the culmination of this year's Nobel laureates and comes with a substantial prize of 11 million Swedish crowns.
Born in 1946 in New York, Claudia Goldin currently holds a professorship at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has been recognized with this distinguished prize "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes."
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Professor Goldin for her groundbreaking research, stating that "Claudia Goldin provided the first comprehensive account of women's earnings and labor market participation through the centuries. Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap."
Unlike the original Nobel prizes for science, literature, and peace established in the will of inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was introduced later. It was created and funded by Sweden's central bank in 1968. The inaugural economics prize was presented the following year and has since recognized a wide array of influential scholars and thinkers, including luminaries like Friedrich August von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and more recently, US economist Paul Krugman.
Last year, a trio of US economists, including former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, received the award for their research into how bank regulation and the provision of public funds to struggling financial institutions can prevent more severe economic crises, akin to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
This announcement of the Economic Nobel follows the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to jailed Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi. The Nobel Committee recognized her "for her fight against the oppression of women" in her country and for "promoting human rights and freedom for all."